


Taylor Hebert and the Wizarding World

by WhyWhyNot



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Animal Death, Child Neglect, Fantastic Racism, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:01:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27601811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyWhyNot/pseuds/WhyWhyNot
Summary: When Taylor Hebert is eleven, she learns that she’s a witch.
Comments: 80
Kudos: 70





	1. Year One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gerbilfriend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gerbilfriend/gifts).



When Taylor Hebert is eleven, a strange woman comes to her house and gives her a letter, with loopy cursive written in emerald green ink on thick parchment.

Taylor is a witch. 

Magic exists.

Magic exists, and Taylor has it.

There’s a magic school. It’s called Hogwarts, and there’s a place for Taylor there.

When Taylor is eleven, the strange woman (the witch!) takes her to Diagon Alley with Mom and Dad.

There are strange people wearing strange clothes (witches! And wizards!), and strange shops full of even stranger things, and a great marble bank where goblins work.

Magic is real. The witch from the school made all the cups in the kitchen float in the air, but Taylor didn’t really understand until she saw Diagon Alley.

Magic is real.

When Taylor is eleven, she gets a wand.

Fir wood and dragon heartstring, twelve and a half inches. Supple. It has a nice pale brown color, and there are small carvings of butterflies and spiders at the base to make it easier to grip.

The wandmaker is creepy and weird, but the wand feels warm in her hand, feels _right_ , and fills the room with yellow dots of light that look like fireflies.

Magic is real, and Taylor has it.

She’s a witch, and she’s going to be great.

When Taylor is eleven, she has to tell Emma she won’t go to middle school with her.

They were supposed to stay together. Best friends forever, come hell or high waters.

They were supposed to stay together, but Taylor is a witch, and Emma isn’t.

 _I don’t understand_ , Emma says, and Taylor wants to explain, but she can’t tell her about magic, and all her explanations feel like a betrayal.

When Taylor is eleven, she has to say goodbye to Emma.

(She has to lie to her.)

When Taylor is eleven, she takes the train to Hogwarts.

The school is a castle, grand and imposing, a great black shape against the night sky, and she can’t stop looking at it as the boats sail across the lake.

There are four Houses in Hogwarts. Taylor hopes she gets Gryffindor, because who doesn’t want to be brave and chivalrous, or Ravenclaw, because it would make Mom proud.

 _You could be great_ , says the Hat, and Taylor doesn’t see it see it, but she has _magic_ , and a whole new world before her, and she wants all of it.

She walks to the Slytherin table with her head held high.

When Taylor is eleven, she misses home.

She hasn’t been so long without her parents or Emma before, and she doesn’t know anyone.

The other kids all know things she doesn’t, they know this world, they were born in it, and sometimes, Taylor will say something, and everyone will look at her.

The other kids all seem very strange, but Taylor wonders if maybe she’s the weird one.

She writes letters to Emma, but it takes time, and more time to get answers, and she can’t tell her about magic so the letters are full of half-truths and lies.

Taylor is lonely.

When Taylor is eleven, she tries to explore the castle and gets lost.

It’s dark, and late, and cold, and it’s almost curfew and she’s going to get in trouble, and she cries.

A Hufflepuff boy finds her. His name is Brian, and he’s in third year, and he walks her back to the dungeons, and agrees to see her in the library the next morning to help her with her Charms homework.

Taylor feels better than she had in weeks.

She’s made a friend.

Taylor turns twelve right before the end of the year exams, and then she has to go home.

It’s weird.

She’s not allowed to use magic during the holidays, and it’s strange, the idea of leaving the world she’s just entered behind for two whole months.

Taylor sees Emma again, but it’s not the same. She’s made a new friend, called Sophia, who’s pretty and strong, and she can’t tell about magic, and she has to lie.

(She can tell about magic to Mom and Dad, but she can’t show them, and they can’t come with her in that new world she’s a part of.)

When Taylor Hebert is twelve, she realizes home will never really be home.


	2. Year Two

When Taylor Hebert is twelve, the summer before her second year ends.

Things are less weird with Emma, and she kinda gets along with Sophia, but it’s still not the same, and she’s going to go back to Hogwarts.

She’s going to keep lying.

It hurts, the lying, the distance between her and her first and best friend, but she doesn’t really have a choice.

Magic is a part of her, and she can’t leave it behind.

When Taylor is twelve, she takes the train back to Hogwarts with Brian.

She hasn’t seen him all summer, and although they did try to stay in contact, there are only so many times an owl can fly through her windows without being suspicious, and Brian’s parents don’t have phones.

Taylor missed him.

It’s good to see him again, to talk about Hogwarts, and magic, and their classes, the way Taylor couldn’t with Emma.

There aren’t any awkward silences, or lies that feel like betrayals.

It feels good.

When Taylor is twelve, she tries out for the Slytherin Quiddich team.

She’s not a prodigy, but she’s not bad either. With some work, she could be good. The problem is that she doesn’t have the experience children who grew up playing with toy brooms have, and can’t practice in the summers to catch up, and doesn’t have the money to buy a good broom. 

Taylor tries out for the Slytherin Quiddich team. 

She doesn’t make it.

Brian, however, becomes keeper on the Hufflepuff team.

When Taylor is twelve, she wishes Hogwarts had a better central heating or, really, any kind of central heating heating at all.

She didn’t notice, the year before, didn’t stop to think about it, too entranced by the fantastic Christmas decorations, but the castle is very, very cold in the winter, and the fireplace do little against that outside the Common Room. 

She knows electronics don’t work in the castle, but they have _plumbing_.

Surely, they could install the old-fashioned kind of radiators.

When Taylor is twelve, she first hears about the Unforgivables.

The Cruciatus. The Imperius. Avada Kedavra.

Torture. Mind control. Death.

(People talk about Avada Kedavra like it’s the worst thing in the world, but she finds the idea of being reduced to a puppet and used against her friends, of loosing control of her very thoughts, infinitely more terrifying.)

When Taylor is twelve, she realizes magic is like a knife.

It can be used for good and the mundane.

It can be used for evil.

When Taylor is twelve, she goes home for Christmas and realizes she didn’t get any letter from Emma in over a month.

She didn’t notice.

It’s weird. They used to be joined at the hip, always together to the point some people thought they were sisters, and she…

She didn’t notice.

When Taylor is twelve, she has to choose her optional classes for third year.

She could take runes. Runes sounds kind of fun. Muggle Studies are out, obviously, but she could choose Divination, like Brian.

She asks for advice from older students, in Slytherin and other Houses, and settles on Care of Magical Creatures and Arithmancy.

Dad is good at math. He might be able to help her with homework.

When Taylor is twelve, a week before her birthday and two weeks before she goes home for the summer holidays, she gets a letter from Dad.

Mom is dead.

Dad couldn’t come and tell her himself. Muggle aren’t allowed in Hogwarts.

There are end of the years exams, and the school say they can’t make an exception for her.

When Taylor is twelve, her mom dies.

She doesn’t get to go to the funerals.

Taylor turns thirteen, and then she goes home.

The house is empty without Mom, and Emma has made another friend, Madison, and spends her time with her and Sophia. She has grown tired of the distance, of the awkward silences, of Taylor’s half-truths and lies.

The house is empty without Mom, and so is Dad.

He’s not okay, and Taylor doesn’t know what to do.

When Taylor Hebert is thirteen, she feels more alone than she ever did.


	3. Year Three

When Taylor Hebert is thirteen, her dad drifts away.

Taylor loves Dad. She tries to help him, but no matter what she does, she can’t reach him as he throws himself into his work and comes home later and later.

Taylor loved Mom, too. She wishes Dad would comfort her, but he doesn’t. He just… Fades.

Taylor loves Dad.

She wishes she knew what to do.

When Taylor Hebert is thirteen, the summer before her third year ends and she takes the train back to Hogwarts.

It’s bittersweet. She wants to be back at school, wants to learn magic, wants to stop watching as Dad drifts further away, but she also doesn’t want to leave him alone. She’s scared of what will happen if she does.

Emma’s Dad swears he’ll take care of him. Taylor hopes he does.

Taylor finds Brian on the train, and he tries to comfort her.

It’s not quite enough, but she missed him.

When Taylor is thirteen, she goes back to Hogwarts.

There’s something comforting about it, in the monotony of classes, in the repetition of days, in the wonders of learning, and Taylor almost feels good.

Almost.

(Mom is still dead.)

(Dad still hasn’t written.)

When Taylor is thirteen, she learns about House Elves.

It horrifies her.

There are slaves in Hogwarts. There are slaves cleaning her room, cooking her meals, doing her laundry.

The Wizarding World has a race of slaves, and Taylor doesn’t know what to do.

When Taylor is thirteen, her concerns about House Elves are dismissed.

_They like it_ , they say.

_It’s their nature_ , they say.

_You don’t understand_ , they say.

It’s not her fault. She’s Muggleborn, after all, and everyone knows those have all kind of strange, silly ideas. It’s not their fault, really, they’re just born that way, the poor dears.

Taylor can feel herself seethe, but she doesn’t know what to do, and they don’t appear to be aware of their condescension.

When Taylor is thirteen, two weeks before her birthday, three weeks before she goes home, Dennis’s father dies.

Dennis is an older Slytherin boy, in his fifth year, like Brian. His Dad is a wizard. 

The funerals are in the middle of the OWL exams.

He gets to go.

Taylor tries not to be jealous.

Taylor turns fourteen, and then she goes home.

Dad isn’t going better, and money is starting to get tight. Hogwarts is expensive, and they only have one paycheck, now. 

Labor laws are more lax in the Wizarding World, and Taylor finds an advertisement by someone looking for an assistant to cast spells, with a background in Arithmancy. 

It’s not quite on Diagon Alley, but it’s not far, and on the magical side of London. 

Taylor decides to go. 

When Taylor is fourteen, she gets a job.

Her new boss’s name is Colin Wallis, but he doesn’t want her to use his surname, and there’s a girl her age living with him. Her name is Rachel, and she likes dogs, but not people.

Colin and Rachel are squibs. They don’t have magic.

Colin makes strange contraptions, using muggle science and magical theory, and all he needs to make them work is a spark of magic.

He doesn’t have it.

When Taylor Hebert is fourteen, she uses magic to _make_.


	4. Year Four

When Taylor Hebert is fourteen, she goes back to Hogwarts.

It’s Brian’s sister Aisha’s first year and she gets sorted into Slytherin, so Taylor promises Brian she will keep an eye on her.

It’s harder than she expected. Aisha likes pranks, and doesn’t hold in place.

Still. Taylor likes her, even if she’s basically a baby.

When Taylor is fourteen, she finds out there are no public libraries in the Wizarding World.

Colin sends her subjects he wants her to look up in the Hogwarts library, books he wants her to consult, and gives her suggestions of things to learn so she can do more things for him in the summer.

She also learns a lot of things she barely understands, but it does help with her schoolwork, since it means she knows more about the underlying principles.

It’s a bit like doing extra homework, except she gets paid for it.

When Taylor is fourteen, she looks into Squibs.

Squibs are people who are born from wizarding parents, but don’t have enough magic to do more than see things muggles can’t, and sometimes make basic potions. There are a few theories that people with this level of magic could be born from muggle parents, a kind of muggleborn Squibs, but the general consensus is that those would basically be muggles themselves.

Taylor doesn’t like the way the books talk about Squibs, like pathetic children to be pitied or cast away, and she likes even less the law passed five years ago, the one forbidding Squibs from inheriting.

Some books say a lot of Squibs have weak, sickly constitutions and die in childhood, mostly between the ages of ten and twelve, and something about it makes Taylor feel very, very cold.

When Taylor is fourteen, a Hufflepuff boy asks Brian for help with his Muggle Studies homework, and Brian sends him to her.

Dean Stansfield is in Fifth Year, pureblood and, from what Taylor understands, filthy rich.

He has the decency to listen when Taylor tells him everything wrong with the textbook, up to and especially its incredibly _condescending_ tone towards the very people it’s supposed to be a study of.

Muggles aren’t children, or stupid.

Dean doesn’t get everything right, but at least, he tries.

Taylor turns fifteen a week before she goes home for the summer.

Dad is a bit better, is eating and sleeping normally again, but there’s still a distance between him and Taylor. He’s not quite ignoring her, he’s just…

Not there. Not really.

Taylor runs into Emma while doing groceries. She’s with Sophia and Madison. Taylor almost stops to say hi.

She doesn’t.

When Taylor is fifteen, she goes back to work. 

She’s starting to like Colin, and Rachel is slightly less aggressive now. She even let Taylor pet one of her dogs (she has six of them).

The work isn’t really something Taylor is passionate about, but it passes time, and it makes money.

And then someone writes slurs on the wall of Colin’s home.

When Taylor Hebert is fifteen, she decides she wants to change the world.


	5. Year Five

When Taylor Hebert is fifteen, things get worse for Colin and Rachel.

The slurs were only a start. They are followed by excrements smeared on the walls, threats and broken windows, and culminate in someone breaking into the house and killing one of Rachel’s dog. Taylor had never seen Rachel cry before. 

It’s terrifying.

In the end, the Aurors have to get involved, and that’s how Taylor learns Colin took Rachel in after she was kicked out by her parents when no Hogwarts letter came for her.

When Taylor is fifteen, she meets the Auror assigned to finding who killed poor Brutus, and hopefully prevent further escalation. 

His name is Shawn Williams. He’s a bit younger than Colin, has a son, and seems pretty nice.

For some reason, Colin appears to despise him.

When Taylor is fifteen, she goes back to Hogwarts.

Brian doesn’t come, this time. He graduated the previous year.

Taylor won’t be alone. She still has Aisha, and Dean stopped by their compartment to say hi before going back to his Ravenclaw girlfriend.

Still. It feels like the turning of a page.

When Taylor is fifteen, she uses the library to make more research.

Part of it is for Colin, to help him with his work.

Part of it is for herself, to understand this world she’s a part of.

She wants to do more than survive. She wants to _thrive_.

When Taylor is fifteen, she gets a subscription to the Daily Prophet. She probably should have done so before, but she can’t change the past. 

She doesn’t like the Daily Prophet. It reads too much like a weird mix of tabloid and propaganda, but it still gets her the news, however biased they might be.

The elections for the Minister of Magic will take place in two years in July, right after the end of her seventh year. One of the candidates will be Max Anders.

Taylor saw his names during her research. He had a hand in the law forbidding Squibs from inheriting, and used the Lavere case to impose more restrictions on Muggleborns trying to work for the Ministry.

Taylor doesn’t like him.

When Taylor is fifteen, the classes she found so comforting the previous year become irksome.

She itches to do something, anything. To see the world become a better place.

Taylor goes to class, and does her homework.

She wonders how many of her teachers think she is less for who she was born from.

When Taylor is fifteen, Aisha corners her to ask her what’s wrong.

Taylor tells her. About the condescension, about the dead dogs and slurs on the walls, about her sneaking suspicions of infanticide, about Max Anders.

Aisha doesn’t dismiss her. Aisha doesn’t tell her she doesn’t understand, or that everything is all right. Everything is not all right.

Aisha says they’ll find something to do. Aisha says she will help.

It feels good to have someone on her side. 

Taylor turns sixteen a week before she has to go home.

She goes back to work, and tries to stay after she’s done to talk with Rachel. They’re starting to get along now.

Sometimes, Auror Williams shows up for his investigation, and they get so see Colin be incredibly passive-aggressive at him.

When Taylor Hebert is sixteen, she asks Rachel what she thinks about Max Anders.


	6. Year Six

When Taylor Hebert is sixteen, Auror Shawn Williams quits his job.

He doesn’t say why, exactly, but Colin tells her the person responsible for the vandalism and Brutus’ death is Tammi Sanford.

Taylor knows Tammi. She’s a pureblood Gryffindor in the year above Aisha’s, and she’s pretty vocal in her bigoted opinions.

Nothing happens to Tammi. 

When Taylor is sixteen, Shawn Williams asks Colin for help and advice.

He has a son, Addison, who just turned eleven.

No Hogwarts letter came for him.

 _I’m not surprised_ , Shawn says.

 _I want what’s best for him_ , Shawn says.

 _I love him_ , Shawn says.

Colin is slightly less passive-aggressive afterwards, and Shawn becomes a regular visitor.

When Taylor is sixteen, she gets a call from a payphone in the middle of the night.

It’s Brian. Something happened with his mom’s boyfriend and Aisha, something he’s too rattled to explain, and Taylor’s blood runs cold.

Brian asks if he can come to her house, but he’s not in any state for Sidealong Apparition, and he doesn’t know enough about the Muggle World to safely take public transportations, so she sends him to Colin’s house and takes the bus herself to join them. 

It turns out that the something with the boyfriend _almost_ happened, but it’s more than enough for Brian to swear Aisha will not be going back.

Colin puts a second bed for Aisha in Rachel’s bedroom, and says he’ll clean the attic for Brian in the morning.

Rachel exceptionally allows everyone to pet Angelica for emotional support.

When Taylor is sixteen, she starts a school club.

The point of the club is to give accurate informations to students about Muggles, or Squibs, or Muggleborns. To make them realize their own biases, and realize that _things are not okay_.

It’s both a tall order, as she needs to go against inertia and ingrained prejudices, and not much, but it’s what she can do. 

Squibs tend to die between the ages of ten and twelve, and Taylor finds that a very _specific_ age range.

She recruits Aisha and Dean, and Dean brings his girlfriend on board. Taylor is a bit dubitative, given the part played by the Dallons in the Lavere case, but doesn’t voice her objections.

She’ll take what she can get.

Taylor turns seventeen a week before she has to go home. She will be old enough to vote when the elections come in a year.

She starts to work with Colin again.

There’s an incident, one evening, as Colin walks her back to the bus station, and she gets hurt. Nothing life-threatening, but it’s bad enough Colin gets her to Saint Mungo and notifies Dad.

Dad starts talking to her again after that. Asking her about her day, and Hogwarts and her friends.

It’s good to have him back.

When Taylor is seventeen, she tells Colin about her school club, and introduces him to some of the members.

Victoria is very interested in Magical Theory, and Colin and her get along like a house on fire.

When Taylor Hebert is seventeen, Michael Knight, an old pureblood friend of Colin’s, announces his candidature as Minister of Magic.


	7. Year Seven

When Taylor Hebert is seventeen, there’s less than a year left before the elections.

The Minister of Magic stays in power until they die or lose all support from the population, and wizards have very long lives. There won’t be another one before a very long time. 

Max Anders can’t be allowed to win.

When Taylor is seventeen, she helps Colin make communication mirrors for easier contact in the school year.

She makes pamphlets with Rachel and the club, and goes around Diagon Alley and the neighboring streets to distribute them to shopkeepers and patrons.

She can’t do much, but she tries anyway.

When Taylor is seventeen, the summer before her seventh year ends.

She’s spent it sticking posters supporting Michael Knight on every surface she can find, working with Colin, helping Brian look for a job and hanging out with Aisha, Rachel, Dean and Victoria.

She’s reconnected with Dad.

Colin seems to have overcome his dislike of Shawn and settled into friendship instead. Aisha says they’re dating.

Addison has been signed up to a muggle middle school with Dad’s help.

When Taylor is seventeen, she goes back to Hogwarts for her very last year.

It’s a strange thought, but not necessarily an unwelcome one.

She’s not a child anymore. Her world is bigger than just a castle.

Dean and Victoria have graduated, but there’s still Aisha, and other students from the club like Chris and Dinah.

It’s the last year. She has to make it count.

When Taylor is seventeen, she tries to advertise the club as much as she can.

Most students aren’t old enough to vote, and the next election will be in a very long time, but they still need to learn. The club needs to keep going without her. 

Hogwarts is a place of education, after all.

It’s the last year Taylor will spend there. She’s making it count.

When Taylor is seventeen, she goes home for the winter holidays.

Christmas is soft, and nice. Dad is there, and she visits Colin, Rachel, Brian and Aisha the next day, and open gifts together. Shawn shows up with Addison, too, and proves that Aisha wasn’t having her on.

Rachel finds a puppy and calls him Bastard.

It’s a good time.

When Taylor is seventeen, she takes her NEWTs.

It’s hard, harder than it would have been had she not had to cram her revisions in between her recruitment efforts.

Still. She did good, she thinks.

She thinks Mom would have been proud. She knows Dad will be.

Taylor turns seventeen a week before she goes home.

It might be the last time she sees Hogwarts.

It’s okay. She’s ready to play with the big kids now.

When Taylor is eighteen, she votes.

It’s easy.

She doesn’t know why she expected it to be hard, except maybe for the weight of the act.

She can only wait now.

When Taylor is eighteen, Michael Knight wins.

She throws a party in Colin’s house, and invites Dean and Victoria and everyone from the club.

They won. For now.

It’s not over, of course. They’ve stopped things from getting worse, not made them better.

It’s a _start_.

When Taylor Hebert is eighteen, she has a long way to go.

She can’t wait.


	8. Bonus Content: Things I couldn't fit in the story

**Dean**

Dean has mastered a superficial form of legilimancy allowing him to read people's emotions.

**Lisa**

Lisa is a pureblood who learned legilimancy from books after her brother's suicide, and ran away from home after realizing her parents didn't actually care about her. She's not going to Hogwarts on account of being a runaway. She's making a living as a fake psychic/con artist in the Muggle world using legilimancy.  
  
**Piggot**

Emily Piggot is a Squib from a pureblood family. She got a job as a very low clerk in the Ministry thanks to her family pulling some strings, and hates every second of it.

**The Dallon, Pelham and Lavere families**

Since we don't have a first name for Marquis, I'm calling him 'Mark' in this universe. Mark Lavere is a Muggleborn who became a prominent figure of the Wizarding Underworld through, notably, racket and extorsion with a dash of murder. To facilitate interactions with the high society he was a part of in parallel to his job, he pretended to be a pureblood, using fake documents and a murder to cover his traces. He was exposed through the combined efforts of the Dallon and Pelham families in the ‘Lavere case’ mentioned in-story, which was used by pureblood supremacists to rekindle anti-muggleborn sentiment.

Mark Lavere’s daughter with a Muggle woman, Amelia, was adopted by the Dallon because it was estimed it would be “cruel” to send her to live with her muggle relatives.

**The Wallises**

The Wallises are not exactly a pureblood family, but they have been wizards for a few generations, and have little knowledge, experience or interest for the Muggle World. They were emotionally neglectful, and occasionally emotionally abusive, but materially provided for Colin until his seventeenth birthday, at which point they gave him some money and told him to go make his own life elsewhere. They didn’t attempt to give him any kind of magical or muggle education. It is to be noted that they would still have been shitty parents had Colin been a Wizard.

Colin learned magical theory through independent studies in the family library. He attempted to live in the Muggle world at first, but was stymied by his lack of knowledge of it, his lack of education and his legal non-existence, and went back to the Wizarding World. He settled on researching magical theory as well as he could, and selling his findings to unscrupulous shcolars to publish under their own names. Hiring Taylor is an attempt to get enough financial autonomy through selling artifacts that he can get recognition himself for further discoveries.

**Rachel**

Rachel’s parents decided to kill her when her Hogwart letters didn’t come, but the family dog protected her and was killed. She managed to run away, and stayed on the run until Colin found her sleeping on the street and suggested she sleep at his place for the night, until better accommodations could be found. Rachel ended up not leaving, and adopting every dog she can find as a coping mechanism. Colin negotiated an accord of mutual non-aggression with Rachel’s parents: neither him nor Rachel would go public in any way concerning her attempts on her life, nor attempt any access to their money or name, and in return, her parents would leave them alone and not contest Colin’s _de facto_ custody of her. The official story is that the Lindt daughter died tragically from some childhood disease, and Rachel is a completely different Rachel who was kicked out of home by her parents.

**Max Anders**

Max Anders was originally supposed to win the election, sparking a civil war resulting with the Ministry being overturned, and the story ending as the reconstruction of the country start, but I scraped it du to the US election. In this continuity, Taylor would have used the Imperius curse on someone at one point.

**Rory**

Rory is from a pureblood family, but has banshee blood on his mother side

**Dinah**

She’s a seer.

**The Vasils**

Nikol Vasil is a French uses copious amounts of love potions to enslave women, and is an abusive asshole. His son Jean-Paul ran away to escape him, and is considering emigrating to the UK. He will probably end up living in Colin’s house somehow.


End file.
